Changing nature of my anxiety

[Richd]

I've been having CBT for the past 3 weeks now, I've always found it hard to pin down the cause of my anxiety, I experience a derealization feeling, panic attacks, sensations in my head, fears of death.

The CBT has worked to an extent, I decided to work on my fear of death, as when I begin to think about it I end up feeling life is worthless if we're all going to die anyway, nature of reality, and then the panic attacks begin. So if I could beat my panic over those thoughts at least then I would be some way to helping myself.

Anyway, the past few days I have been panicking more about the sensations in my head, the left side of my head mainly, around my nose, tear ducts, ears, forehead, back of head, and sometimes I feel like I'm finding it hard to swallow. I'm going to go to the doctors tomorrow to get it all checked out anyway to make sure it is just my anxiety and no medical problems behind it.

But I was wondering, has anyone else had this, and how does it work in relation to CBT? My panic attack tonight, over tense feelings in the back of my head and neck, and feeling like I couldn't swallow, or that I could swallow my tongue, was amongst the worst I have ever had.

[Captain America]

hmm..tricky one. fear of death or existential anxiety is hard to cbt because it's so generic, and everybody has it to some degree. i think the key is to find out what it is about death you fear the most. like for me, it would be to not see my kids grow up. so in some odd way, the thing that gives my life the most meaning also creates the most anxiety.

so my therapist had me write letters to my kids, pretending i was dead. that was hard. also i upped my life insurance, and corrected my will to better provide for them, etc.

aside from that, i have asked/allowed my wife to take them to church more, so they will have faith to fall back on that i don't myself have.

so i worry less about them, and it helps.

make sense?

[Bill]

I feel we can either be born with fear or learn fear from those around us or experiences, or both. I think fear in its nature will make us focus on the biggest fear we all have - death - which is why people often turn to faith because it helps to believe that death isn't the end. In the old days, religion used to use scare tactics to increase the congregations. They played on peoples "natural" fear. Of course though some people just believe in faith whereas as other are atheists. None of us really know what awaits us, if anything, until we get there except for spiritualists and mediums. I just try to keep an open mind on all beliefs and religions.

Anyway, the main point is why we focus on death so much when it's something we can't prevent anyway! I always believe that it's only worth worrying about something if it's within our control to do something about it.

I do know that stress at work or at home will trigger anxiety, and often I've talked about "the parrot in the cage" because when we feel stressed, we start pulling our feathers out! i.e. the stress makes us focus on our own health which of course then triggers our fear.

When we feel trapped in a cage by stress, we have to open the cage door to break free and only then can we see things to live For rather than focusing on when our life will end because we then stop analysing our health. Therefore, look for ways to ease stress such as changing jobs, lifestyles, taking time outs for relaxation etc.

I've often thought to myself how does a 99 year old person stop fearing when their last day will be? Well, they don't think about it because they take one day at a time. And what do they do with each day? They try to find things to do they enjoy and in that way they don't worry about all their aches and pains or think of the future! We should try to follow their example.:winks: