are you good at getting out of things ?

[mirry]

On the 4th of March I have to walk my daughter for 20 mins to the local train station to meet up with her school for the school trip :blush: .

Already I am thinking of how I can get out of this :lac: .

My options are as follows......

Go and struggle with anxiety /panic and walking.
Ask if she can sleep at her friends house who lives next to the railway station.
Ask if she can walk with the neighbour and her kids there.
Get hubby to take a day off work.
Not let my daughter go.

:ohmy: .

Do you think like this too ?

[Paddington]

Oh Mirry hun..i should say so..i spend my life trying to get out of stuff:blush: But i must say that since joining here and meeting all you guys i now make all the excuses in my head and do it any way:yesyes: I bet you do too most of the time:flowers: Love Paddie.xxxxxxxxxxx

[mirry]

lol paddie , for some reason I find it more difficult to cope in fron tof my kids , but if i am alone I can manage more (how strange).

:hugs:

[helenclaire]

Hi Mirry,
I have a list of excuses as long as my arm, to cover me for most situations,
Quite often when the time comes i actually feel able to tackle it but i still have some excuse at hand if i cant go.
You know your daughter will be fine what ever you decide, she will just be excited about her trip and prob wont mind whether you are there or not.
All the best
Helen:)

[Rennie1989]

Lol I always get cold feet! I have to go to my last work placement this friday for 6 weeks which is at a day care centre for people with learning disabilities ... already I am thinking how am I going to get out of this but so far all I have thought of is that I didn't get my letter saying that I have to go ... thing is my Mum has seen it and she knows I'm going!!!!!

Good luck with the 4th March, give it a go and see how what happens. How old is your daughter anyway, can she walk some of the way? (Here I go again, lol)

[breeze25]

Hi Mirry.

Is it possible that you could walk with someone?

Sorry you feel like this.

[sheba2]

yep this is a constant battle. I have to collect my 6 year old from school each day. The school is literally 60 steps away from our house but the only way I can do it is by driving. I rarely get out of 2nd gear. I think up loads of excuses for not doing everything. Sometimes this is necessary because without my husband taking time off or neighbours stepping in I wouldn't achieve the small amount that I do. What I try and do is say I am going to do whatever it is but I always put a back up plan in place so that if I'm not at the school one of the other mums will bring daughter home. Nine times out of ten I manage it but I hate the stress and exhaustion that goes with it. good luck

[chalky]

Hi Mirry,

Would it help to try to totally focus on the positive aspects of this-the benefit to your daughter.
I know this might sound very simplistic and I am not trying to under-estimate the nature of your problems.
Think of the sense of achievement when you accomplish this
I believe you are capable of doing this,given good preparation.
:hugs: :hugs: :hugs: :hugs: :hugs: :hugs:
Best wishes,
Chalky

[Gryphoenix]

I'm totally like that too! When there's something that I don't really wanna do I think of the greatest excuses ever. And sometimes I follow out on the excuse. But when I really, really want to do something, no excuse could keep me from doing it.

So maybe we need to just change the situation to something you know you really want to do! Maybe if you see it as a step forward and you really want to make that step because once you do it, you've beaten this old foe of panic and anxiety into submission.

I had to keep constantly doing what I feared to beat it. I had this fear of getting ready to get out of the house, not agroraphobia exactly cause I wasn't afraid of going outside or anything, I just feared that whole 'getting ready', putting things on and gathering up my stuff cause I had the worst PA ever once when doing it. Anyway I HAD to get out of the house to go to college (paying for it after all...) and it was terrifying every time but after a month or so of this torture the fear faded, faded, until I don't even feel it anymore and I can get out of the house just fine.

[mirry]

so im not alone :blush: , I am gonna try and do it but I just know im gonna panic, as long as she cant see me panicking i will do it. I dont want to alarm her.:hugs:

[liddylou]

I have suffered with every kind of anx possible over the last 10 or so years and have learnt one thing (not alot I know but it helped). The absolute worst part of any anxiety condition is the preanticipation of doing something, in your case the up comming walk to the station. If you were told about 10 mins before she had to be there that you had to walk here there, yes you would panic a bit but no where near as much as you will imagine you are going to for the next few days. I do think the excuse making is a very slowed down version of the 'fight or flight' situation and manages to have (in our mind) the worst case senario planned out for an event before it happens. Once I managed to convince my head that the worrying about stuff was ALWAYS worse than the actaul event I started to challenge it. Easier said than done I know but, if you try and challenge what you are worrying about before it happens you will realise just how much we manage to totally wind our minds up. When I was agrophobic I used to sit in the house worrying about what would happen if I had to go out somewhere in two days time for example and obviously by the time the event had come round I had managed to worm my way out of it. However, I remember a friend phoning me one day telling me that she was stuck in work and had no one to collect her daughter from school (5 mins up the road, may as well have been 10 miles to me). Anyway, she needed collecting in 15 mins and my friend was desperate. I had to go but, having not been worrying about this even for the previous two days I just bit the bullet and went for it. Gues what I had such mild anx while I was out this is when the preanticipation side of things kicked in and made sense to my brain. After this I used to sit in the house, plan as little as possible and occasionally just say, ok I going to the shop now!!! and go. I still get the preanticipatory anx but now look at is as a positive and realise that if all the anx builds prior to an event, nine times out of ten when I actually get there it will be easier than I imagined.

Sorry for waffling but this really did help me and if it helps just one other person I will be happy.

[PUGLETMUM]

:yesyes: hey liddylou(your not waffling),mirry & all, what your describing mirry is classic agoraphobic behaviour so everyone with agoraphobia will know what your talking about and will have felt it themselves many many times.

what you are descibing liddylou is catastrophic thinking which is actually the root cause of the fears - in your mind mirry how you feel in front of your daughter will be sooooo traumatic that she will be disturbed by you? this is not the case, very few of us would ever behave so uncontrolled or hysterical even if we were in the grip of a full blown panic!!! but you are soooo frightened of that happening that you stay in this situation - like the feel the fear book says - isnt it hard to feel how you do now? and like gryp says once you do it for a while it does get easier because you are re-programming your brain to see that panic cant hurt you in the way that you imagine it can. you have to deal with the catastrophic thoughts and expose yourself to the situations that are creating this anticipatory anxiety - because it is this that is stopping you from moving forward - we are all here to support you mirry, if you need it ask and we will help you to get through this:yesyes: if you want my number so i can help you through this just ask? we want you to get better mirry, but you just need to break through this sticking point, take care emmaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx